I purchased a knife from DHgate a few days ago and to my surprise there was no tax.
Saved me a few bucks and probably purchased from the same seller from Aliexpress.
I dont know that for sure but they do have alot of same pics.
I just realisedā¦Itās called Ali express but it takes a month to get to you 
Just a joke donāt take it too seriously
Would be keen to hear from OP again. we have many CS reps on here, but having an AE rep would be really useful.
Well, Iāll point another one:
FASTTech, is probably not Fast nor tech.
4 days to answer a message, just to tell me that the item (old one) they supposedly have in stock, is not in stock because they need to ask the supplier for it (that will not happen because it is an old flashlight model)!! Soā¦these names do not correspond to what they probably āmeanā.
I had very few problems with AliExpress stores, but I chose the ones that seem more reliable (communication, shipping time, rates and reviews to see if the products correspond to what is portrayed in the photos/specs or not.)
I hope this member is ārealā and can give us some nice deals. Although I normally check the flashlight deals for myself 
Iām somewhat surprised by all the negative comments about AE and feel i must express a different view here.
Iāve bought stuff from AE for four years. More then a hundred orders i guess - i havent checked. Anything from electronic components, flashlights, batteries, light bulbs, knifes, party stuff, solar garden lights, hand spinners and parts to lingerie and sex toys, and itās a marvel. Prices are way good, product quality is often exceeding what you would expect from such cheap items, delivery is almost guarantied - about two weeks in my case, sometime just a few days, rarely more then a month, but it gets delivered. It works very well. Where can you have access to such a variety of items, place orders as low as one euro and have it delivered to your mail box free of charge (most of the time)?
However, i do my homeworks before ordering. I check the number of orders, number of reviews, which i read carefully, looking at dates and pictures. I also browse the āRecommended for youā or āYou may be interested inā section at the page bottomā¦ narrowing on more popular or reliable vendors for the same item. And in the end, i also accept the risk of loosing my money (worst case scenario) if that should happen - which it never did. There has been a few disappointments, but nothing to cry about - to me it is part of the āgameā and i still use AE.
There are some improvements iād be glad to see and iām confident they will come. Iāve also used FT some years ago and their site has not evolved much since then - way worst the AE if you ask me.
Iām still curious to know what Mr/Ms Aliexpress here is up to. As said before i donāt think he/she/it is on the CS side, but rather on the sale side. I donāt expect much listening, problem solving or support. Probably more ads then i already get in my mail. Wait and seeā¦
I love aliexpress too 
Yeh, Iāve bought quite a lot from AX going back some time. Great stuff. Had a small handful of disputes, always resolved in my favor (probably helped that I was always reasonable and patient, not yelling at them, etc.). Zero complaints until last year or so, with the ārevampedā website that was less than useful, and then the sneaky shady āsales taxā scam.
As Iāve said often, it can take a long time to build up trust, and have it be destroyed very fast. The sales tax scam left a rather nasty aftertaste, as you pretty much all-but-know AX isnāt remitting collected tax to individual states here in the US.
A lousy website it just ineptitude. Last week or so, IMDB ārevampedā their image gallery page for a grand total of like 2-3 days before they put it back to the old way. It just sucked, and I guess enough people complainedā¦ and they listened. On AX, lousy search-functions, pricing fiascos, old- and new messages/email/whatever, I imagine still hasnāt been fixed. Okay, thatās fine.
But the tax thing? Dat just nasty. Nasssss-ty.
How is FastTech's site way worse than the AE one?
The fact that FastTech has not remodeled their site is good, it means the site was well designed for a start and it only has received the necessary modifications. I love FastTech's site, its fast and nearly crap free. Hope for it to live much longer.
Latest AliExpress site renewal, on the contrary, was a blunder. Period. The previous version of their site was overall faster and more responsive, and I didn't have to put up with a stupid squatter search bar. The all-new messages doesn't works 100% from a mobile device opening their site in desktop mode, and to this point many sellers still send messages with the old chat which worked super but we no :| longer can use. There's even more, just check my thread A few words about the new AliExpress site overhaul :-/. Of course the site doesn't annoys me nearly as much now, but this is because I have changed for the better and learned to deal with it, not because it really is any better.
Thencewith, I hereby declare that the AliExpress site sucks. And while you are entitled to think otherwise, if we were to make a related poll this conclusion would win.
I like AE. Never been wronged by them nor any seller. If thereās an issue, it gets fixed. Wish they had better āsalesā ($1 off $20?). The COVID-19 deal has made it crappy to order stuff so Iāve resorted to paying 25 to 40% more for things in the USA (but exponentially faster shipping). Iāll be glad when the madness is over. The other other retailers Iāve bought from (overseas) is Kaidomain and eBay Chinese sellers. All similar experiences.
Yah, I donāt like being charged 8.4% tax ordering online, but in WA state, itās a requirement. Only Mtn electronics doesnāt charge tax.
Hahaha!!! you went a little step above AliExpress.
Cheers.
From the silence here the last few days, Iād guess this guyā¦ DID work for AliExpress 
I like AliExpress too, they have lots of interesting stuff. Iāve placed over 200 orders by now with something like a 98% satisfaction rate. In the other cases, the dispute resolution worked every time.
There are only two flies in the ointment for me:
- The AliExpress search system is incredibly bad. It used to be good, but not now. I have to use Google to search AliExpress! The only site with a good search engine now is EBay.
- The āEvaā chatbot thing on AliExpress is useless to me. I eventually just blocked it altogether to stop it covering up useful information behind it on the page.
As comparisons, I still use Banggood, but I prefer AliExpress for the wider selection of products. I also use EBay and Amazon, especially for things which are better purchased from UK sellers (heavy stuff, stuff that incurs taxes at customs, stuff I need quickly).
Iāve stopped using Gearbest altogether, though. Gearbest dispute resolution is awful. I just got fed up with it and let my account lapse when my old email address died.
Gearbest wonāt let you change your account email address, by the way. Incredible. The hassle of setting up a new account finally made me give up on Gearbest ā that was the straw that broke the camelās back.
So yes ā before this turns into an āI hate Gearbestā post 
ā I like AliExpress. Even if our resident AliExpress representative canāt do individual deals, just getting announcements about holidays and sale campaigns will be helpful.
ali is AWOL.
Naw, I mean the semi-hard ones like you find for portable usb disks, only smaller.
Eliza it aināt.
Mmm, and who is Jack Ma? 
P.S.: Ah! It's one lf those lads who wipe their arses with $100 banknotes (Jack Ma @ Wikipedia).
Jack Ma is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, in one of his first jobs he made about 10$ per month as an English teacher. He is also a great example that rejections in life should never hold anyone back from going forward.